Reuters and other media outlets are publishing claims this morning that global warming is threatening Antarctic ice shelves. The rash of media stories perfectly illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of each side in the global warming debate.

Computer models, programmed by global warming alarmists to assume that carbon dioxide causes substantial global warming, keep predicting rapidly warming Antarctic temperatures and melting ice sheets. In the real world, however, Antarctica is not warming at all and the Antarctic ice sheet is in a long-term expansion.

NOAA satellites report that Northern Hemisphere Arctic sea ice extent is currently at the long-term average. In the Southern Hemisphere, Antarctic sea ice is substantially greater than the long-term average. Taken together, the polar ice caps are not melting at all; in fact, they are larger than the long-term average.

Given a choice between real-world climate observations and speculative computer models programmed by biased actors, “skeptics” tend to believe the real-world climate observations while alarmists choose to ignore the real-world observations.